Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
We must travel three miles down a quiet road when the road finally turns abruptly to reveal a guardhouse and gate. Behind the gate is a familiar-looking ward. If I could move, I’d sink to the floor with despair. We are back where it started.
After days of this cat-and-mouse game, three of which I spent asleep, I find myself back in the glass prison.
We drive up to a barrier and pull up next to a group of official-looking men guarding the gate. The guards wear uniforms with the large Creature Council patch on their arms and don’t ask for any identification.
They speak to the driver, nod at Damien, and take note that I’m in the back seat. My face is all over the news—and they don’t even blink. Then the car is let through. The ward doesn’t impede the vehicle, and that tells me everything I need to know.
The Creature Council are aware of everything.
We drive through familiar streets, and the car stops at the town square.
Damien removes the spell—or attempts to—and exits the car. The door on my side opens, and I’m left with a single burly guard. I’ll never get a better chance. The guard moves to grab my upper arm, and before he can make contact, I get ready to flick the spell from around me to him and…
This is too easy.
What am I doing? The spell is ready to go, but I can’t use it. They’ll know I can use magic without a charm if I do. He’ll know it was me who twisted his magic and that Gary is fake. It’s a test. The sloppy, put-together spell must be a test.
It’s so hard to let the spell go, and as it harmlessly disperses, I want to kick myself for my paranoia.
The burly guard pulls me out of the car. This will be unpleasant; my body is stiff as a board. I wobble, and he fists my hoodie and slams me against the car frame. My spine and legs creak into the new shape.
Six massive men, three in front and three behind, surround the car, stepping between me and freedom.
I did the right thing; I never would have gotten away.
I recognise all the guards’ magical signatures.
It wasn’t so apparent when I was in the square surrounded by bodies and on the edge of exhausted panic.
But now I see they’re all tainted with the same magic as the Pied Piper spell—Damien’s magic.
The last time I saw these men, they were asleep and trapped behind my ward, wearing their Scooby-Doo villain masks.
The realisation makes my insides tremble as I take them in, and angry tears fill my eyes.
That’s another thing Damien Hass was right about.
The Creature Council had to be aware of this, and they let them go.
I never thought I’d regret not killing someone. I never thought murder the best choice, but now I regret not stuffing these bastards into that ash-making machine. It was a mistake. My mistake.
I stare out into the square. I wish I could go back to that day.
Slow clapping comes from the left.
“Bravo. Well done,” Damien coos as he strolls to my side.
“You, Kricket Jones, are very entertaining. I have never seen anyone not try to run away. They fall over, and it’s so hilarious.
It gets me in the feels every time.” He thumps his chest and then taps my nose.
“You’re one to watch. Tricky, tricky little girl.
What are you looking at?” He bends, presses his face to mine, and stares at the building-packed street and the rows of homes in the distance.
“Ah, your town. I see it from your point of view, all these places to hide, all these buildings and houses. If only you could get your stiff legs to work.” Damien waves his hand to encompass the town, then turns and strolls away.
“Come, let’s fix the temptation. I have an inkling to do some powerful magic. Bring our guest.”
The men surrounding me close in, and I’m led—more like dragged—into the street and to the square, where not long ago the entire town was asleep.
After a minute of shuffling, the stiffness leaves my limbs, and I no longer hurt.
“Excellent.” He waves the guards to step back and grabs my upper arms and positions me slightly to the right. “There,” he says with a smile and a painful squeeze. “Here will give you a perfect view. Don’t move now.”
I couldn’t if I wanted to, as with a flick of his fingers, I’m once again stuck to the floor, frozen. This spell is much better than the last, and it’ll take me a few hours to unravel—another test?
He flicks his fingers, and two of his minions hurry to opposite sides of the street and begin to draw a massive chalk circle. It must be a potent spell if it requires one.
The two guys must have done this a lot; as the circle takes shape, it looks perfect.
Another man brings out a table, places it in the centre, and carefully lays out a tablecloth and a plethora of dangerous-looking magical items. He backs away with a respectful bow as Damien steps forward and, after making a big deal of rolling his left sleeve, he selects a curved ceremonial knife.
He holds it up, and the blade winks in the sun. It looks sharp. It is sharp, as with one movement from left to right, he slashes open his forearm and then places the wet blade back onto the table. With blood dripping between his fingers, he begins to walk clockwise around the circle.
Blood magic is not necessarily evil. But sacrificial magic does tend to scare people. Anyone with a lick of common sense and magic knowledge knows magic itself isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s the intentions of the magic user you have to watch out for.
He lines the circle with his blood and then, unconcerned that his arm is still leaking, does nothing to stanch the flow as he moves to the centre and begins to chant.
His arms thrust into the sky, one palm open, and the other, the left one, the one covered in blood, is gripping an object tightly in his palm.
Something about the thing in his hand resonates with me.
I narrow my eyes, catch black peeking through his fingers, and realise with shock it’s a charm.
With the chalk and blood circle simultaneously blocking and amplifying the spell, I should not be able to feel it, but I can.
I realise something quite profound: the magic that Damien Hass uses has never been his. The charm is the source of his magic—the only source of his magic. That’s the signature that oozes darkness over everything; it has its claws into him and the guards, and it created the Pied Piper spell.
No, the magic has always been that ancient charm, and this is the reason everyone’s freaking out about my magic. Unlike my charms, which have a single job to do, this thing’s magic is vast and endless.
That charm is incredibly dangerous.
It whispers inside my mind, telling me it likes the blood, pain, and sacrifice.
It’s a horrible, bloodthirsty thing, and it likes to destroy things.
I was wrong when I thought that magic couldn’t be inherently bad.
I was wrong; this thing, this charm, is evil.
The Dragon’s Eye wants to destroy everything.
The Dragon’s Eye—the charm, has a name.
My power and charms are nothing like that. They are an extension of myself and my magic. Most are jokey, bubbly, and light yet strong enough to heal and protect.
That thing in his hand is dark and corrupted. Everything inside me screams its wrongness. I block my mind and push away its whispers. I want to run away as fast and far as I possibly can. I would have been long gone if he hadn’t stuck my feet to the floor.
Damien throws his head back, and the tempo of the chant increases. I feel it when the Dragon’s Eye takes over. It doesn’t connect with him on the level my charms do. Instead of working with him and using his internal power to feed the spell, there is no internal power, so it tugs at his life force.
I can see the magic, and I can see the minutes, the hours of his life being sucked away.
It’s horrifying.
The power grows, crackling in the air. The magic builds until the chanting finishes on a crescendo, and then he opens his jaw impossibly wide. The spell blasts out of his mouth and shoots blackness into the air, spreading across the sky like nothing I’ve ever seen.
At first, I think the black is millions of insects, like he has unleashed a plague.
But that’s not right. It’s not smoke either; it’s thicker than that.
It keeps coming and spreading, and the fear—oh my gosh, the fear and terror that magic produces hits something primal inside me.
The urge to flee makes me feel feral, and if given the chance, I would fight the guards and hurt myself to get away.
My heart is pounding so hard that pain shoots down my jaw and neck, and the still sane, sensible part of me worries that I’m going to have a heart attack.
I don’t know what is happening as I watch the black stuff drift.
Then the buildings around us crumble. Cracks appear and break off, but they don’t fall. They don’t get to touch the ground.
The magic eats them.
It’s hungry and eats everything in its path, everything it touches: concrete, metal, brick, and glass.
Is it going to eat me?
His guards shuffle with anxiety. Now the fear isn’t just affecting me. A few of them hack as if they can taste the horror of the magic, like something noxious at the backs of their throats.
A whine slips from my frozen lips as I watch it consume the beautiful library until nothing is left, and then it rolls on, attacking everything in its path—one home and another, and another and another.
I stand here, frozen and horrified, watching it work its way through the town, and it’s then I know that he hasn’t been lying.
There’s nobody here.
Everybody has gone.
Either the Creature Council has pulled everybody out in secret and over five thousand people have been re-homed, or these monster invaders have murdered everyone.
Bile rushes up my throat. It burns when I swallow it back down.
I haven’t got the luxury of throwing up. I can’t move, and I’ll suffocate.
I watch as the spell rolls on like a magical storm.
Everything they had, everything they were, is gone.
Every piece of evidence that they lived, loved, and existed in this town has been stolen, and I feel broken.